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Nesarian Civil War
Nesarian Civil War The Nesarian Civil War, fought from 1830 to 1840, is widely considered to be the most devastating conflict ever fought in the Nesarian Empire. While the Second World War had slightly more casualties and the Nesarian War of Independence took much more lives, the Nesarian Civil War had more casualties relative to the population at the time, and the devastation caused to villages, towns and cities across the Empire was extremely widespread. The war cost 11.25 million lives, which was 20% of the total population at the time (approx 37,500,000). By contrast, WW1 claimed 7% of the population, WW2 claimed 11% and the War of Independence claimed 12%. It was the single most devastating war relative to the population in European history since the Thirty Year's War. The Empire would not expand at all after the Civil War until the First World War, when the Empire temporarily made significant territorial gains before being defeated. The separatist and nationalist sentiment caused by the various separatist rebellions during the Civil War caused two more civil wars, the Estemorian Uprising and the Persian Uprising - however these were much smaller in scale. There were many factions pitted against each other in the Civil War, however the two prominent factions were the Loyalists and the Republicans. Some separatist groups fought each other and the separatists sometimes fought the Republicans, but generally they were united against the Loyalists. The Loyalists were generally conservatives and monarchists, however the Republicans held a wide variety of ideologies and beliefs - the only thing they all agreed on was that the Emperor must be overthrown. Socialists, communists, anarchists, liberals, libertarians and classical republicans were all counted amongst the ranks of the Republicans, as well as many other ideologies. This sometimes resulted in clashes between Republican factions, although any real physical fighting was always small in scale. Orthodox Christians tended to drift towards the Loyalist side, whereas Protestant and Catholic Christians as well as Jews tended to drift towards the Republican side. Most of the Muslims living in the Empire at the time all joined the Loyalist side, as did all the Zoroastrians. The other religions had no clear trend of supporting either side. The Loyalist leadership wrote repeatedly about their surprise at the loyalty of the recently conquered Russians. They had expected the Russians to take up arms in revolt as soon as they heard about the war, but in truth most of the Russians preferred life under the Nesarian Empire than under the practically feudal Russian Tsardom. The Loyalists received approximately 80,000 troops from Prussia and 100,000-120,000 troops from Greece, whereas no rebels received any outside help. The most decisive battle of the war was the Battle of Karotaga in 1840, fought on the vast Estemorian steppe. The entire Republican force was killed or routed, and several prominent generals were captured or killed. The Republicans, although not entirely defeated, realised that achieving victory after such a devastating blow was impossible, and surrendered.